One-on-one meetings are a vital tool for team management, but how do you make sure they are effective and impactful? In this article, you will learn how to plan, conduct, and follow up on your one-on-one meetings with your team members, and how to measure their outcomes.
Before you schedule a one-on-one meeting, you should have a clear idea of what you want to achieve from it. Do you want to give feedback, discuss performance, solve a problem, or support a development plan? Having a specific goal will help you prepare the agenda, the questions, and the tone of the meeting. It will also help you communicate the purpose and expectations to your team member, so they can come prepared as well.
Another opinion could be the cumulative knowledge brought to an interview from experience/schooling should form free flowing conversation in order to demonstrate the communication skills necessary to be adaptable in the changing work environment
The biggest pitfall I have seen with one-on-ones is that they just devolve into simple work planning and review meetings. They do not get into the development or two-way-feedback conversations that are essential but can be less easy or fun to dig into. You may want to structure your meeting to ensure you cover those areas are covered. Maybe you set different agendas for different sessions. Maybe you have a set agenda that covers all the topics every time. Every month or so, review your notes and calendar and see if you are covering all the items you need to be. If not, revise your approach.
One of the best ways to make your one-on-one meetings effective and impactful is to ask open-ended questions that encourage your team member to share their thoughts, feelings, and opinions. Open-ended questions are those that cannot be answered with a simple yes or no, but require elaboration and explanation. For example, instead of asking "Are you happy with your work?", you could ask "What are the most rewarding and challenging aspects of your work?". Open-ended questions will help you understand your team member's perspective, motivations, and concerns, and will also show that you are interested and attentive.
Open-ended questions are also critical to fostering a creative atmosphere. While I regularly talk numbers with my teammates, we also allow for brainstorming sessions. Open-ended questions have resulted in some of the most impactful ideas we've developed in our organization. Just exploring what's inside the minds - and hearts - of my colleagues, we have a chance to take risks together and to hear what they choose to say, not just provide a binary answer to my inquiry. Overall, the key is to balance the approach: get to the data, but also get to the passion.
Ironically, sometimes putting more specificity in open-ended questions can help. A generic question like "What are the most rewarding and challenging aspects of your work?" has a lot to unpack and choose from. People might find it hard to start. Instead, try dividing it up into smaller, more specific questions like "What are the 1-2 aspects of your work that you find most rewarding?" and "What are the 1-2 things you find most challenging?" The point is to just get them talking to get the conversation going. Smaller, more pointed open-ended questions might do that better than big, generic ones.
Another key skill for conducting effective one-on-one meetings is to listen actively and empathize with your team member. Listening actively means paying attention to what they are saying, as well as to their body language, tone, and emotions. It also means asking follow-up questions, summarizing what you heard, and clarifying any misunderstandings. Empathizing means showing that you care about their feelings, needs, and goals, and that you respect their point of view. Listening actively and empathizing will help you build trust, rapport, and engagement with your team member, and will also help you identify any issues or opportunities for improvement.
Summarizing back what they say is a good way to show you are catching the content they are conveying. Echoing back their feelings is a good way to show you empathize with them. For example, if they are telling you about challenges they had to work through, repeating back a simple "Wow, that must have been frustrating!" can go a long way to show you are feeling the emotion they are conveying too.
One of the main objectives of one-on-one meetings is to give and receive feedback on your team member's work and performance. Feedback is essential for learning, growth, and recognition, but it can also be challenging and sensitive. To give effective feedback, you should follow the SBI model: describe the situation, the behavior, and the impact of the behavior. For example, instead of saying "You did a great job on the project", you could say "When you delivered the project on time and within budget, you showed your professionalism and reliability, and you made a positive impression on the client". To receive feedback, you should be open-minded, curious, and appreciative, and avoid being defensive or dismissive. You should also ask for specific examples, suggestions, and action steps to improve.
Initiating feedback can be awkward. Especially upward feedback. Find a way to make it come up in a natural or fun way. Maybe just putting it explicitly on the agenda is enough. Maybe making it an expectation for each person bringing at least 1-2 items of feedback will work. Maybe it is taking turns. Find some way in your own style to make sure those feedback exchanges happen.
The last step of your one-on-one meeting is to agree on action steps and follow up. Action steps are the concrete and measurable tasks that you and your team member will do to achieve your goals, address your challenges, or implement your feedback. You should write them down, assign them deadlines and responsibilities, and review them at the end of the meeting. Follow up is the process of checking in on the progress and results of the action steps, and providing support, guidance, or recognition as needed. You should schedule regular follow-ups, either in person, by email, or by phone, and keep track of the outcomes. By agreeing on action steps and following up, you will ensure that your one-on-one meetings are impactful and lead to positive change.
If you set up your meetings up on a short enough recurring basis (e.g., weekly), they can become their own deadlines. Just start each meeting off with a review of the action steps agreed to at the end of the last one. Set the default deadline as the next meeting. This reduces the need for more complex project tracking of their action steps. And remember that action steps go both ways - managers get action items from these meetings too.